Allegro (Sonata of the Sea) 1908

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis made Allegro (Sonata of the Sea) with paint, but it feels like so much more. The way Ciurlionis laid down the colour here is so delicate, like watercolour, and you can see the build up of layers in the paint, revealing his process. What I find so fascinating is the texture and how it plays with the idea of a sea, or a shore. Look at the very bottom, the way he’s created all those little bubbles, and then how he’s mirrored it at the very top with what could be tiny pebbles or shrubbery. It's this push and pull of micro and macro that really gets me going. Ciurlionis’s paintings remind me a little of Odilon Redon, that dreamy, almost hallucinatory use of colour. It’s like he’s pulling something from inside himself and putting it on the canvas.